For me the first thing that comes to mind is Tales from Earthsea. I don’t think it’s excellent or anything and has plenty of problems but people act like it killed their dog. While it has its problems that have been covered extensively, I think it has a beautiful atmosphere and art.
IMO it would have been better received if it wasn’t advertised as an Earthsea adaptation and was just its own thing.
I didn’t really follow the online conversations around the movie, but I did watch it and it’s not entirely that long ago since I watched the animated movie either. If I was to try to judge the movie without the context of the orighinal, I’d say it was fine, nothing about it was terrible but I also didn’t find anything about it particularly good or memorable. I think Will Smith did a fine job and I don’t think he’d be anywhere near the top of the list of what I would criticise about the movie in that case.
But I do think context matters, and in context I think it comes out looking pretty poor. Genie as written for the live action movie pales in comparison to the animated one. In terms of craft I think the live action one feels like a soulless board-room directed husk, and I really miss the feeling of a creative voice in the whole thing.
If you’re going to remake something, I it should be better, or enough of a reinterpretation to be considered distinctly different.
I am glad others liked it, but if I someone asked me which they should watch I would tell them the original animated movie because I think it is a better piece of entertainment, and that makes the modern one feel like an absolute waste of time, money, skills and effort that could have been spent so much better.